Well, it's official. As of Angel's "Habeas Corpses", which aired Jan. 15, 2003, Gavin is gone to the great beyond - at least for now. As we well know, characters have a way of reappearing on Angel and Buffy despite the considerable obstacle of death.
I can give you a quick rundown on Daniel, but you would do better to just check out his official website, listed below - it is a well-maintained site that has almost everything you'd want to know about the actor.
Daniel was born August fourth, 1968 in Pusan, Korea. His family immigrated to the U.S. when he was just two, so his hometown is actually Easton, Pennsylvania. High school hobbies included sports, editing the school paper and being student body president.
Daniel went to several colleges, and did alot of theatre, some material of which he wrote. He also entered the MFA acting program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in '93. After moving to L.A. in 1997, he found work quickly, and got acting gigs in "over twenty projects in two years", according to his website bio.
The actor loves sports, but spends alot of his spare time with his wife and six year old son.
What follows on this page is another collection of links, and a few quotes. I have looked around on the internet, and have not as of yet found any fansites for Daniel Dae Kim. I shall, however, keep looking. In the meantime, everything you might conceivably want to access (besides Daniel's age, which is absent from from his official website as well as the IMDB database - sloppy work on their part, I guess)is at DDK's official site. Daniele requested his age and year of birth be left out so he would not be discriminated against in seeking roles for twenty-something year olds, which he often plays. His official website is at:
Daniel Dae Kim's Official Website - Everything in the Ghost of Gavin pages is taken from this website. Everything.
IMDB's Daniel Dae Kim Page - A good, concise listing of Daniel's film and television credits. His date of birth is listed on this site as "August 4, ???... I felt like the page's web mast/ress was almost talking to me, saying 'what the heck? WHERE IS IT?' Is he a vampire or something? Or that could just be that I need to take my meds.
Gavision - My own page with a few pictures of Daniel Dae Kim. You can find those and many, many more at his official website, listed above.
Appearances on Angel - A listing of Angel episodes in which Daniel guest stars.
"This is an actor who has done an awful lot of work for me over the years. His name is Daniel Dae Kim, and he's playing one of the attorneys. And one of the things that the producers most liked about his audition was that he didn't try to do too much. He's really just very, very serious and very steady and steadfast. And of course when you try to do a show with vampires and all of the kind of make-up that goes into that, so exciting and out of this world, to have a sort of steady influence in the scene also helps to have contrast between the characters."- Fred Keller's director commentary on Angel season 2 DVD (UK release)
"I'm not a method actor, but my cruel behaviour [at their first meeting] caused Daniel to doubt whether it was Lilah or me talking to him...The lines were written in a way that called for me to be a bitch, and I genuinely think that he was afraid of me. Of course, after the scene I apologised, and we get along great now, but needling him in that way created the right chemistry and tension."
- Stephanie Romanove (Lilah) on her first meeting with Daniel on the set of Angel
I think Asian Americans have to fight for a very small portion of the roles available in Hollywood. Not only are there times when we don't get certain roles because they're written for Caucasian actors, but I've also been denied parts because I wasn't the SPECIFIC Asian nationality requested in the script. I can name two high profile projects recently that passed me by because I was Korean, and not Japanese, or Chinese, even though the dialogue was in English. It's a kind of prejudice that you don't see with any other ethnicity. It's rarely questioned when a Brit plays an Italian, or say, an African American plays a Nigerian, but for some reason we are subject to that kind of scrutiny.
- Daniel Dae Kim, on Asian-Americans in Hollywood (you can read the rest of this article at Jade Magazine. I pretty much love this article and I recommend checking it out; this article also discusses Daniel and his wife's reaction to him being voted one of Jade's sexiest Asian men in an online poll).
"I was actually really surprised at how difficult it was [to shoot that scene]. I haven't done anything like that on stage or on screen in a really long time and I certainly haven't done it in my personal life, so I knew it might be difficult, but I was still surprised by how moved by it I actually was. At the end of the day, I found myself a little bit shaken." He agreed that overall, the episode's subject matter of violence against women was terrifying, saying, "The reality of it is pretty grim." Daniel also acknowledges that the show dealt with a sensitive topic in a thoughtful and considered way, but from a personal standpoint it was still rather difficult to handle.
- Daniel, referring to the AtS episode "Billy" where he attacked his female co-worker Lilah Morgan (played by Stephanie Romanov).
Interesting Facts The character of Gavin Park originally had another last name. Daniel requested that it be changed to Park, a common Asian name, to better reflect the reality of the character.